Mbeki briefed on Taylor's fate

2006-03-13 13:06

Abuja - Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo has briefed his South African counterpart, President Thabo Mbeki, on talks concerning the fate of exiled former Liberian leader Charles Taylor, a Nigerian spokesperson said.

No details about the meeting - which took place late on Sunday during a flying visit by Mbeki to Abuja - were given, but Liberian sources had previously said Obasanjo would talk to fellow African leaders before extraditing Taylor to his homeland.

In August 2003, Obasanjo and Mbeki persuaded Taylor to step down and accept asylum in Nigeria, in a bid to end his country's 14-year-old civil war. The two have since come under pressure to hand him over to face war crimes charges.

"President Obasanjo ... briefed President Mbeki on recent developments concerning Liberia, former president Charles Taylor and the recent visit to Nigeria by president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf," spokesperson Remi Oyo said.

International prosecutors at a UN-backed special tribunal in Sierra Leone have accused the former Liberian leader of sponsoring a brutal rebel movement, the Revolutionary United Front, during a civil war in the 1990s.

Several foreign governments and human rights bodies have urged Obasanjo to extradite his guest to face the charges, but the Nigerian leader has insisted that he would only do so at the request of a duly elected Liberian government.

Sirleaf was elected president of Liberia in December in Liberia's first election under a UN-backed peace process and visited Obasanjo in Abuja earlier this month, sparking reports that Taylor's expulsion was imminent.

- AFP